The Authority is currently considering the 16 submissions and three cross-submissions to a consultation paper seeking feedback on the proposed decision-making and economic framework for distribution pricing.
However, progress with the distribution pricing methodology (DPM) review project has slowed due to a focus on transmission pricing. The Authority is working towards beginning the review of distributor's alignment with the Distribution Pricing Principles and Information Disclosure Guidelines in November 2012.

The Authority advised in December 2011 that it was revising its approach to the DPM review project to include consultation on introducing a decision-making and economic framework for distribution pricing. The intention of the framework is to provide a consistent and durable framework to guide decisions by electricity distributors and the Authority about allocating the costs of distributions services.

The Authority is preparing to consult on the urgent amendment it made in March 2012, to enable Transpower to temporarily remove interconnection assets from service, or temporarily to reconfigure the grid in circumstances where this results in a net benefit. This urgent amendment to Subpart 6 of Part 12 of the Electricity Industry Participation Code 2010 (Code) expires in December 2012.

The Authority will consult on whether or not to confirm the urgent amendment. The Authority does not consider allowing the urgent amendment to lapse will be an issue because hydrological conditions in December should not require significant southward power flows. Also, Transpower has time to amend the Outage Plan to incorporate new grid configurations, as considered necessary, to deal with reasonably foreseeable events.

The Authority intends releasing the consultation paper in November 2012.

The Authority has published a consultation paper on the operational review of Part 6 of the Code that deals with the connection of distributed generation (DG) to distribution networks. The matters covered in Part 6 were previously set out in the Electricity Governance (Connection of Distributed Generation) Regulations 2007.

The consultation paper has three main elements:

The consultation paper is available at:

Submissions should be made to submissions@ea.govt.nz by 5pm on Tuesday, 30 October 2012.

The Authority has gazetted a minor amendment to the Code on financial transmission rights (FTRs).

Schedule 14.6 of the Code requires the system operator to provide model data on the normal grid configuration to the FTR manager on a monthly basis. The amendment transfers that obligation from the system operator to the grid owner, as the grid owner is more easily able to supply the information. The Code amendment was gazetted on 30 August 2012 and comes into force on 27 September 2012. It is available at:

A draft document showing high level obligations by participant for the new Part 10 has been published at:

Any feedback on the draft document can be provided to the Part 10 implementation project manager, Lori Martin at lori.martin@ea.govt.nz.

The registry functional specification for the implementation of Part 10 has been updated to include requests for a change to the PR-010 report and an additional switch type for efficiency gains. This version of the functional specification (v19A.5) is available at:

The Authority is not currently considering any further changes to the Part 10 registry functional specification.

An update of the Authority's calendar setting out indicative dates for upcoming consultations is available at:

Click on banner to access: